Feb 12, 2008, 01:27 AM
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#6 (permalink)
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Frozen in Carbonite
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Kansas City, MO
Posts: 1,397
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Maddogg6
Gitmo should be closed - its an illegal occupation that should have never happened.
So, is it a surprise it is used to circumvent our constitution?? not to me.
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How is Gitmo an illegal occupation?
Quote:
By the war's end, the U.S. government had obtained control of all of Cuba from Spain. A perpetual lease for the area around Guantánamo Bay was offered February 23, 1903, from Tomás Estrada Palma, an American citizen, who became the first President of Cuba. The Cuban-American Treaty gave, among other things, the Republic of Cuba ultimate sovereignty over Guantánamo Bay while granting the United States "complete jurisdiction and control" of the area for coaling and naval stations.
A 1934 treaty reaffirming the lease granted Cuba and her trading partners free access through the bay, modified the lease payment from $2,000 in U.S. gold coins per year, to the 1934 equivalent value of $4,085 in U.S. dollars, and made the lease permanent unless both governments agreed to break it or the U.S. abandoned the base property. Since the Cuban Revolution, the government under Fidel Castro has cashed only one of the rent checks from the US government. The Cuban government maintains this was only done because of "confusion" in the heady early days of the leftist revolution, while the US government maintains that the cashing constitutes an official validation of the treaty. The remaining uncashed checks made out to "Treasurer General of the Republic" (A position that has ceased to exist after the revolution) are kept in Castro's office stuffed into a desk drawer.
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Guantanamo Bay Naval Base - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
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